


A Short Story About Love

by cortexiphans (Hazelmallorn)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, References to Fringe (TV), victuuri au series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 18:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10393227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazelmallorn/pseuds/cortexiphans
Summary: There's a force somewhere out there, buried deep within the universe, bringing Victor and Yuuri together in every universe, in each of the places they meet, in all of the lives they are.Part one: Victor and Yuuri are physicists working on a method to travel to parallel universes. As their relationship is developing, something goes horribly wrong with their experiments.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My friend Ray (liliths) went on a solid rant about how Victuuri was literally destined by the forces of physics and the universe itself. Thus this AU series was born, in which Victor and Yuuri are together in (almost) every world. 
> 
> Part one in a series of four-ish AUs, all based on relatively underrated or obscure books/movies/tv shows. 
> 
> This AU is based on the TV show Fringe, my absolute favorite. Fic and chapter titles are all from Fringe episodes. No fandom knowledge is at all necessary to fully understand the fic. 
> 
> A special thanks to my dearest friends Ray (liliths), Zero (ilprincipino), and Brooke for kicking my ass and getting me through this.

Green Lake Convention Center, Wisconsin, USA. 29 Jan, 2136. 

 _Cassiopeia. Canis Major. Canis Minor. Carina. Alpha Centauri._

_It was a particularly clear night and turning away from the_ _waxy yellow glow of party lights and old music from the 21st Century, Victor could make out dozens of constellations. The Milky Way itself was nearly visible, hanging northwest in the sky and mirrored in the calm lake in front of him. Meanwhile, a drunken, beautiful mess of a man (or boy? Victor had no idea how old he was) sat unashamedly on Victor’s lap, smiling as he looked up at Victor through long, dark eyelashes. Victor wondered, for a moment, if he was dreaming, if this was heaven, if he’d suddenly passed on to another world and became a constellation himself. Him and the man on his lap together. One of those love story constellations, like Orion or Andromeda._

 _“Where do we go, Victor, after we die?” The man’s voice was soft, and his words were strung together in one legato line. It was a drastic change from his wild, loud dancing not thirty minutes ago, but Victor found both versions equally exhilarating._

_“I don’t know,” Victor murmured in reply, brushing away a stray strand of black hair on the man’s forehead. “It’s a question that plagues all of us, maybe us physicists working on the fringes of knowledge more than most.”_ _“_

 _Do you think that somewhere, in another universe closely resembling ours, we’re having this same conversation?”_

_“Yeah, I believe that,” Victor whispered, resting his chin on soft black hair. “Do you also think, then, that in another universe, we didn’t meet or have this conversation, and somehow that changed the course of all events and created another universe in itself?”_

_He was being idealistic, overly cheesy, ridiculously romantic, but Victor was too drunk to notice. More accurately, he noticed but was too infatuated to care._

_“_ _I’d like to think so,” the other man responded, speech slurred yet somehow still sultry. Victor was entranced. He opened his mouth to ask the other man a question…ask him…what? Victor had something to ask him but the alcohol had dulled his mind, and he hadn’t recalled his question before the man pressed hot lips against his collarbone and every other thought dissipated. Warmth blossomed inside him even though it was a cold January night in Wisconsin, and he was sitting outside without a jacket._ _But it was gone too soon, like a flower wilted prematurely from a sudden frost. Gone too was the weight on Victor’s lap, and through hazy vision he saw the man recede from sight._

_His name. That was the question he’d forgotten. He didn’t know the man’s name._       

* * *

_Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. 30 April, 2136._

People are so damn stupid, Victor thought angrily as he punched the coordinates for Christophe Giacometti's office into his teleporter, taking out his frustration on the poor glass buttons. He was too angry to even feel his normal nausea during the last leg of the teleportation journey. Victor usually preferred to travel by the much slower personal air car just to avoid that atomic reassembling at the end of teleportation. He'd purposely entered one degree south of the usual coordinates just so that he could barge through the door. He was petty, yes, but he was also pissed. Christophe jumped as Victor stormed in, tossing the manila file onto his desk and sitting down with a huff in the chair opposite him. 

“Honestly, Victor, you’re such a drama queen. Another bad interview?” Victor groaned, burying his face in his hands. He thought he felt a migraine of sorts coming on, for the tenth time in as many days. “You have no idea. This one went on a solid fifteen-minute lecture about everything a human being could possibly know regarding the history of string theory. Not even string theory itself–the  _history_. She had me asleep by the second word. I couldn’t even get her to shut up.”He was interviewing candidates for the position of his lab assistant, which Chris had finally convinced him he needed. At the moment though, Victor would much prefer working alone than collaborating with any of these idiots whose interviews he had to suffer through. None of them were remotely capable of proposing a single original, clever idea that could surprise him.  

“You know, Victor, maybe you should give some of these people a chance instead of just throwing them out the second they try to showcase what they know. I mean, they really do have very strong backgrounds and previous accomplishments.”  

“Previous accomplishments mean nothing if there’s no way they can help me now,” Victor pointed out, scooting his chair closer to Christophe’s desk and sliding over the foot-high pile of folders. “If that’s what you’ve been judging them by, no wonder I’m getting awful candidates. I need someone who doesn’t just know how to do physics, or who understands string theory, or even anyone who’s published multiple papers in the field.” Victor paused before adding, “That’s my job.” He grinned, unable to help himself.

He was one of the youngest Nobel Laureates in physics, and leading physicist alive right now, so he considered himself quite justified in thinking that his mind was more than capable of covering any ideas that any of the prospective assistants he’d interviewed were capable of thinking up. Leading physicist, except maybe for Yurio, although Victor would never admit it aloud. He had more accomplishments, but that young asshole, entering graduate school at just twenty years old,had more time. If he figured out the method to traveling between parallel universes before Victor did, Victor would lose his title as youngest Nobel Laureate and probably as most renowned physicist of his time too. 

Christophe sighed in exasperation, having gotten accustomed to Victor’s self-inflated antics by now. “Fine, Victor, but what exactly are you looking for?”  

“Mmm,” Victor murmured, paging through a couple pages of one particular file before carelessly tossing it on the ground. “Something different. Something new. Someone who will show me multitudes I could never have even dreamed of.” He had long since become far too sick of these boring clichés, applicants with nothing but multiple degrees from Harvard or MIT, who had previously worked in prestigious labs or even had labs of their own, who had a plethora of achievements fattening up their resumés. He had done more, been more, accomplished more than all of them combined. He didn't need another simple assistant who could carry out the same old experiments that led nowhere.  

Victor could practically feel Chris rolling his eyes at his ridiculous ideals. “Well, why don’t you hire an artist instead? Get him to paint nudes so you can showcase your dick,” Chris suggested savagely. Though Chris was technically Victor’s secretary, the two had grown rather close over the years, to the point where Chris really had no filter when it came to informing Victor of precisely what was on his mind, usually through either sass or sexual innuendo. Or both. Although Victor hated admitting it to himself, Chris was probably his closest friend aside from his poodle, Makkachin.  

“Maybe I should,” Victor murmured, ignoring the snide tone of Chris’s comment. He paused the impatient rhythm his fingers were drumming out on the table. “Maybe…” 

“Oh, come on,” Chris groaned, running a hand through his blond hair. “You know I was kidding. You’re getting way too desperate though. Like some sort of lovesick man at 27 with enough achievements to line a wall of certificates and fill a room of medals but no relationship that's ever lasted past a month." 

“First of all, thats not true. I dated Mila for a solid six weeks in high school before I realized I was gay. Plus, obviously I'm desperate. I'm running out of time,” Victor retorted. “And Yurio has the advantage,” he added more quietly.  

Victor remembered when he had first detected neighboring parallel universes, the sudden beeping of the machine that he'd began building in secret his senior year of college in an abandoned lab in the basement of MIT. He'd been considering dropping out at that point; his own work was far more important, relevant, and intelligent than anything he was doing in school–not like he didn't ace all of his physics and math tests without ever studying. He would’ve had a solid 4.0 if it weren’t for those classes that actually took attendance. But none of that had mattered; he went on to complete a Doctorate in theoretical physics and that was when he finished building his detector and successfully detected a parallel universe for the first time. He'd won the Nobel Prize for that, but it was also then that he'd lost interest in his work entirely. Lost interest in everything, actually. 

Victor paused as he flipped open another file. The photo of the man was strangely familiar: dark hair, blue glasses, the warmest brown eyes...

"Oh my God. It's Banquet Boy." 

"What?" Chris looked up at Victor in furrowed-brow confusion before glancing at the file in understanding. "Oh, him. Wait, _this_  was Banquet Boy? I tossed him out automatically. He has a horrible reputation of messing up any presentation whatsoever. Good pole dancer though,” Chris added, raising his eyebrows suggestively.   

"Why?" Victor asked abruptly.  

“I don’t know. Maybe he goes to strip clubs a lot?”

“No, I mean why did you cut him?” Victor squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to imagine the man at a strip club. Chris grinned, before sobering up again.

"This is the top of the food chain we're talking about here. It's life and death in the scientific community. Say you discover something Yurio never thought of, and he goes and messes up your entire introduction at the International-"  

Victor held up a hand, silencing Chris while still staring intently at the printed photo on the top left hand corner of the bio and resumé of Yuuri Katsuki.  So that was his name. At the banquet, Victor hadn't managed to get his name. Or his number, for that matter. 

"Anyway," Victor continued, as if he hadn't been remembering graceful hands sliding down his thighs, the breath of champagne against his cheek, hot lips pressing against his bare collarbone... "I want to interview him."  

Chris sighed, giving in. The poor man had been subjected to listening to all of Victor's mooning over a mysterious "Banquet Boy" he'd met at a conference a couple months ago. The mysterious man-boy, since Victor could never guess how old he was (23, the answer was 23), had drunkenly challenged Yurio to a dance-off and won, challenged Victor to a dance-off and won, and then proceeded to strip while grinding on Victor. He also pulled off ridiculously difficult pole dance moves with Chris, who had of course produced said pole out of nowhere. It was the most fun Victor had had in ages, fun he didn't even know he was capable of having. Somehow, through that one night, he’d regained his capacity for emotions, regained the capacity to care somewhat about what he was doing. He didn’t know how, but he knew it had everything to do with a certain Yuuri Katsuki.

"I've already told him that he wasn't accepted for an interview,” Chris said, “but fine then. I'll call him again"  Victor shook his head. 

“Don’t worry, I'll contact him myself.” 

He wondered what Yuuri would say when they saw each other. How would he react to Victor in a professional setting? Would he mention the banquet? Would they, maybe, be able to even continue where they left off? A small voice in Victor’s mind wondered if Yuuri even remembered the banquet properly enough; after all, he’d been solidly drunk on sixteen glasses of champagne. But it didn’t matter, because no matter how foggy Yuuri’s brain was, the moments they shared were special enough that Yuuri must've remembered _something._

Unless they didn’t mean the same to Yuuri as they had to Victor. Victor cracked his nuckles anxiously. That was actually highly likely, and the realization was like a knife in his gut. The truth was, as long as Yuuri hadn't felt so impossibly alone, hadn't felt as though life had lost all its joys and was no longer worth living but for that one night of vitality, then the significance of dancing with Victor, half naked, their hands entwined and bodies so close, or sitting outside underneath the stars and contemplating the universe together, was not nearly as important to him as it was to Victor. As long as Yuuri had a single friend who wasn't his secretary or his dog, Victor thought bitterly, as long as Yuuri had ever known the warmth of love, familial or otherwise, he probably didn't give a damn about drunk dancing with a stranger, albeit famous and accomplished.  

"What's on your mind?" Chris asked, jerking Victor out of his spiraling thoughts. Victor merely shrugged in response.

"Nothing much,” he lied. "I’ll take Yuuri's file and contact him," he repeated. "We'll see where to go from there." 

Chris raised his eyebrows suspiciously, but didn’t question him further.  

§

Yuuri Katsuki was an entirely different character sober. He was shy, endearingly shy, and had a tendency to stumble on his words the same way he stumbled on the steps leading down to Victor's lab. Victor found it utterly adorable. 

“Hello,” he said, extending his hand and flashing Yuuri his brightest smile. Was he flirting in a formal interview? The real question was, did he really care? Yuuri took his hand in a light but firm shake.  _Let go,_  Victor reminded himself repeatedly. _You’re supposed to let go of his hand now_. Victor let his hand drop, his palm still warm and tingling with Yuuri’s soft touch.

“Hi,” Yuuri replied, smiling tentatively and biting his lip. Victor’s breath caught in his throat, breathless at that small action, and though he prided himself on his composure, though he had nailed every interview and every conference, he was helpless against Yuuri Katsuki biting his lip with a soft smile. Hell, he was helpless against Yuuri entirely, who he’d been attracted to from the start. It wasn’t anything he could really explain, this force that seemed to draw him to the black-haired man with blue-framed glasses standing before him right now.

Victor had faith in physics, had faith in the logical way it could explain how everything in the multiverse worked. But he realized, looking at Yuuri, that physics had met its match. Though he couldn’t explain his attraction, Victor could explain why he wanted to keep Yuuri close. Not everyday did someone just burst into your life like a brightly burning star, casting light where there once was only darkness. An extreme and pretentious way to describe how Yuuri had drunkenly danced with Victor, but that was, without a doubt, how it had felt at that time.  Before that, he'd woken up each morning looking forward to nothing, living for nothing, his body simply a vessel–for what purpose, he no longer knew. Even getting food was a chore, and for a year, Victor could’ve counted on one hand the number of times he’d had three meals a day. Yuuri had been the one to give him some sense of purpose that January night, somehow. Something to live for, although he didn’t know what.  

Yuuri cleared his throat hesitantly, and Victor realized that he’d been staring at Yuuri’s lips for an embarrassingly long time.  

“Ah yes. Your interview." Yuuri stared at his hands awkwardly, but Victor didn't miss a beat, brushing off the staring as though it was completely normal. "Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? Tell me your name, age, and something about you that I should know.”  

Yuuri took a deep breath, and his words came out in a rush. “My name is Yuuri Katsuki, I’m twenty-three, and I guess something you should know is that I'm really into figure skating. And also...I don’t do very well in interviews. Or any public situation.” Victor smiled at Yuuri’s cute nervous laugh.

“Don’t worry about that,” Victor assured Yuuri. Truth was, as long as Yuuri said one brilliant thing during his entire interview, he was hired. It was a new level of unprofessional, and both Chris and everyone in the physics community would think he’d gone mad. But Victor couldn’t bring himself to care. He didn’t know how else Yuuri would stay in his life, except maybe if he asked him out directly. But that wouldn’t work, because they were still strangers, and he didn’t know if Yuuri was already dating someone, or if he was even gay in the first place. 

Was it selfish of him to want to keep Yuuri? He was offering Yuuri one of the most wanted jobs for postgraduates in the physics world at the moment, but did that provide some sort of justification for his actual intentions? Honestly though, he didn’t care much at all about himself being selfish; he only cared that Yuuri actually wanted what he was getting. And seeing that he was applying for this job, he logically wanted it. So Victor could justify his actions, simple as that.  

“So, Yuuri, I’ll ask the dreaded question to get it over with. Why do you want this job?” 

“Well I’ve always admired your work,” Yuuri began hesitantly. Classic; no surprises there. Victor noted his hands twisting in his lap. “I really don’t think I have a chance, but I’m just so fascinated by what you do; it’s so out there that I don’t think many rules even apply anymore. And that’s cool.” Yuuri paused, blushing as though he’d just said something embarrassing. Victor couldn’t decide if he wanted to make Yuuri blushing illegal, or if he wanted Yuuri to blush like that, always. “I mean, obviously rules do still apply,” Yuuri corrected. "I just mean that whatever solution you’re looking for might end up being just as much art or faith rather than simply science.” 

Victor bit back a sharp inhale as he remembered the conversation he’d had with Chris about hiring an artist. Was Yuuri somehow both? “Why do you say that the solution lies in art?” Victor asked. Yuuri blushed more.

“It sounds stupid, I know,” he began. Victor waved his hand, cutting him off.

“I don’t think it’s stupid at all. Quite brilliant actually. I’m just curious why you think that.” 

“Really?” Yuuri sounded hopeful, but with a tinge of awe that Victor was listening to him. “Well, think about it. Twenty years ago they couldn’t even detect whether or not parallel universes existed. Now, thanks to Guang-Hong Ji’s intelligence enhancement breakthrough in biology, humans think faster and vaster, an unprecedented brilliance. So naturally, we’ve gone through a lot of accomplishments in all branches of science and technology in a very short amount of time. It’s incredible, and to those living before Guang-Hong’s discovery, what we’re doing right now is basically playing God, tampering with what God controls. But we call it science.” 

Victor could listen to Yuuri talk forever. He could sit there, and just listen to the gentle rise and fall of Yuuri’s voice, a little breathier when excited. He could forever watch the way his eyes lit up and his body posture opened, his shoulders straightening and his hands coming out of their clasped position to gesture enthusiastically.

“Keep going,” he encouraged upon seeing the animated light in Yuuri’s eyes falter slightly. 

“Well what I’m saying, basically, is that we’re in entirely unknown realms. Sure, everything is very scientific. But Icarus’s fictitious wax wings were the precursor to airplanes, were they not?” Victor nodded, mesmerized. Yuuri could have said that the acceleration of gravity was 5.63 meters per second cubed and Victor might’ve still nodded. “Which means that whatever we’re looking for, the portal to another universe, may well lie in the wild, unpredictable insanity and spontaneity of art rather than rational science. The idea comes first, the rationalization second. The lines between science and art are, after all, much more blurred than the educational system programs everyone to think.” 

Maybe Victor was biased, or half drunk on infatuation, but that was the most brilliant thing he’d heard from any interview. Yuuri was flushed from excitement now, but also looking up at Victor apprehensively and biting his lip again.

“You’re hired,” he said, still staring at Yuuri. 

“What?” Yuuri gaped at him. 

“You’re hired,” Victor repeated, standing up and shuffling his papers into order. 

“Wait, why?” Yuuri asked, brow still furrowed in confusion. As if he didn’t know the sheer brilliance of what he’d just said. As if he didn’t know that Victor was impossibly attracted to him. 

“That was brilliant,” Victor said simply. “Chris will contact you about all the necessary paperwork, but please report here tomorrow regardless.” 

“But I haven’t even proposed any new ideas,” Yuuri protested, flustered. “I haven’t even really said anything except my own…musings.” Victor raised an eyebrow. 

“Do you not want the job then?” he asked, his voice more teasing than threatening. 

“No, no, no,” Yuuri said hurriedly, jumping up. “I mean, yes, of course I do!”

Victor smiled, and it surprised him how easily the corners of his lips curved up. Genuine smiles hadn’t been easy of late. “Then you’re hired.” Yuuri nodded wordlessly, still in shock, and Victor felt a strange pang in watching him collect his coat and push in his chair. As Yuuri was about to leave, Victor extended his hand. 

“Congratulations,” he said as Yuuri shook his hand. Yuuri smiled, and Victor’s heart skipped a beat. “Thank you,” he said quietly. Victor would be lying if he didn’t admit that he held on to Yuuri’s hand slightly longer than was necessary for a handshake, and when he finally let go he let his fingers gently brush away. “See you tomorrow.”  

§

“You’re telling me you hired this nobody just because you supposedly 'fell in love' in one night at a banquet while utterly smashed?” Chris plucked a scarlet geranium from the vase of flowers sitting on his desk and began absentmindedly fiddling with the petals.

“He’s not a nobody,” Victor protested. “He’s obviously a thinker. He may be shy and awkward but he’s actually really intelligent and that’s really obvious when you talk to him. You haven’t even spoken to him,” Victor added. “So your points aren’t valid.” 

Chris sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. If Chris had been more prone to bursts of anger, like Yurio, he’d probably be smashing his head against the wall. 

“Okay, but consider this.” Chris pointed the flower at Victor like a sonic screwdriver. "You’re being selfish as hell.” 

Selfish? Victor had considered it, sure, but Yuuri obviously wanted the job. He pointed that out to Chris. 

“Fine, maybe he did want the job. But it’s kind of a dick move to hire him partly because you want to get in bed with him,” Chris said bluntly.  

“I do not want to sleep with Yuuri,” Victor responded automatically. 

“Judging by how obsessed you are with him, you kind of do,” Chris replied calmly. 

“I do not. Not yet, at least.” It astonished him how true it was. Chris raised one eyebrow in a silent question. “I don’t want to sleep with Yuuri,” Victor repeated, calmer this time. “If that’s all I wanted, I wouldn’t have needed to hire him.” 

Chris whistled.

“What?” Victor demanded defensively. “Is there a problem with that?” 

“No,” Chris replied, and he was laughing. Actually laughing. “No, it’s just that I never thought I’d see the day when you’re genuinely attracted to someone. You usually just sleep with someone whenever you’re horny or whenever you want to and lose all contact the morning after.” 

“I do not–” Victor began to protest, before breaking off. Chris had a point; he had been somewhat promiscuous when he first met Chris, although recently it was more so to see if he could still get pleasure from sex, to which the answer had been primarily no. His one night stands, not too common in the first place, had trickled to almost nothing in the past year.  

“Is that everyone’s perception of me?” Victor asked, even though his days of really caring about his public image were over. He used to, before he stopped caring about anything at all. This was one area where he would always beat Yurio. He had put such effort into crafting the perfect public profile–humorous and charming, most outgoing for a leading physicist, yet not too scandalous either.

Chris shrugged. “I mean…you were pretty infamous for a while. And honestly, you kind of act like it, too.” 

“That’s stereotyping.” 

“Yes, but stereotyping exists. It sucks, I know, but it’s a thing, and you kind of fall directly into the playboy stereotype, Victor.” 

“Does Yuuri think that of me?” That was the only question that Victor really cared about. Since when did things change so much? 

Chris groaned. “Look, Victor, I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t particularly care right now. If he does, then just…prove him otherwise, okay? As irritating as you are about this, you seem happy for once and I’d hate to see you fuck this up.”                  

Happy? Victor hadn’t even considered the word. Happy had long since faded from his vocabulary. Happy was the light in couples’ eyes as they laughed while clinging on to each other at the local ice rink during Christmastime. Happy was a lazy picnic in the park as a parent watched their child pluck a dandelion and blow the fluff into the breeze. Happy was idealistic images bathed in sunshine, all those books and movies and wedding album photos that were too good to actually exist, so _false_ they made Victor angry. Happy was fiction. Even knowing Yuuri wasn’t real happiness–was it? It was inspiration and purpose, yes, but not happiness? Victor didn’t know what that even meant anymore, only that it was his unattainable end-goal. That without it, despite all he had worked for and all he had achieved, he ultimately failed in life.                 

Chris could be right, but it didn’t matter right now. What did matter was the sense of vitality Victor felt again, the thawing of spring as the frost melted, releasing the flower from its cold cage. What mattered was that, for the first time in forever, Victor was genuinely looking forward to tomorrow.


End file.
